


Flagged

by aunt_zelda



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest, Jealousy, M/M, Murder, Murder Family, Other, Panic Attacks, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sensory Overload, Threesome - F/M/M, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:11:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months ago, something left the world half destroyed and half mad, killed millions and displaced everyone else. Will Graham wanders the wilderness, heading vaguely east, and notices someone following him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flagged

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at the Hannibal Kink Meme, here: http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html?thread=809823#cmt809823 
> 
> Reposting all the old parts here, as well as new parts. I was updating and then had my wisdom teeth removed, was out of commission for a few days, then got busy with my summer job and other things. I feel ashamed for not updating sooner.

_Flagged: leaves or grass turned in the direction of travel, showing the underside of surfaces. Tracking term._

 

 

Will knows he’s being watched. 

He’s known since yesterday, well, suspected since yesterday, but today he knows. He woke and noticed a shadow down the road, a shadow cast in the wrong direction. 

Will wonders if this predator wants him to know he – or she – is stalking him. Some predators are like that. He wonders if they want him to run ragged, wear himself out, before the kill. 

Will pretends nothing is amiss, scuffs out the meager fire, and walks on. 

The shadow follows him. 

The sun climbs in the sky and Will approaches a valley, the burnt skeletons of houses scattered by a river. He rests, fills his canteen, hears the sound of a branch breaking some two-hundred yards away. 

Clumsy … or purposeful?

Will stands up suddenly, wanting an end to this charade. He turns towards the noise, hands at his sides, waiting. 

He can’t run, this predator will only chase him down. Perhaps if the person stalking him gets close enough, Will could wound them enough to slow them down, allow Will enough of a head start that the predator will give him up as a bad idea. 

“I know you’re there!” Will yells, the first time he’s raised his voice in months. He hasn’t spoken in days, his voice is rough.

A man appears on top of the hill, at the treeline. He’s dressed in browns and dark greens, a thick jacket. He looks warm, prepared, strong, a real survivor. His hair is light, but he’s too far away for Will to tell the exact shade.

The man is holding a rifle. Will stiffens when he sees it: most of the people he’s encountered didn’t have guns. Guns were for gangs and warlords. Rifles are kept by solitary types, hunters, the people living off the land deep in the woods, hiding from the gangs and the cannibals. 

Will has a few knives, but they’re no match for a man with a rifle, and that kind of height advantage on the hilltop.

Will watches, frozen, as the man considers him. He can’t run, if he runs he’s prey, the man will shoot him, chase him, if he stands still he might …

Will isn’t sure what might happen, but he knows he’ll be dead if he tries to run. 

The man makes his way down the incline, slow and steady, scanning the area, both hands on the rifle. 

Will draws one of his knives, holds it out. “That’s close enough.”

The man blinks, then grins. It’s not a hungry grin, more a kind of indulgent amusement, like that of a parent with a naughty child.

“I would not have missed from up there. I will certainly not miss from down here,” the man strokes the gun idly. 

Will feels panic surging through his veins, urging _fight or flight._ But he can’t run; he can’t fight. 

“What do you want?” he demands.

The man smiles, slowly now, a little hunger there. _Flesh. Food. A chase. Companionship. Prey. Conversation. An end to the loneliness._

“You.”

Will starts, taken aback. “What?”

“You. I have been tracking you for some time.”

“I noticed yesterday.”

“I have been tracking you for a week. You noticed faster than anyone else.”

Anyone else? Will gulps. “Why?”

The man grins, all teeth, and does not answer. 

“Where are you headed?” Will asks.

“East.”

“Me too …” Will says slowly. 

The man smiles. “We shall travel together.” It is not a question. 

Will opens his mouth to protest, but a look from the man makes him stop himself. 

“I am Hannibal. Hannibal Lecter,” he holds out his hand, shoulders the rifle on a strap.

“Will Graham.” Will reluctantly sheathes the knife, holds out his hand to shake. 

Hannibal seizes him by the wrist, drags him forward. Will has the sudden impression of impossibly maroon eyes and naked desire before finding himself pressed against Hannibal’s chest, Hannibal’s other hand now circling around to catch Will by the back of the neck. 

Will stays very, very still, barely breathing, heartbeat racing. He knows Hannibal can feel it, can probably smell his fear at this point, his sweat, the panic attack threatening to unleash itself any second. 

“Shhhhhhhhh …” Hannibal murmurs, holding Will close, face pressing into Will’s hair. He makes a soft sound, almost a moan, almost a purr. Will’s eyes widen when he realizes that Hannibal is _smelling his hair._

“Oh … god …” Will chokes. 

“Shhhhhhhhh …” Hannibal repeats, hand stroking Will’s wrist. 

Will has not been touch by another human in four months, hasn’t been touched for reasons other than violence since the … Event. The Event that left the world half destroyed and half mad, killed millions and displaced everyone else. Even before the Event, Will didn’t like to be touched. And now this man is … all over him, everywhere and he … he can’t … 

Will feels his knees buckle, sees the ground rise up to meet him, swimming and blurred. He feels Hannibal gripping him tightly, not letting him fall …

… Will is swallowed by darkness. He hears the rustle of a stag, feathers … red eyes like Hannibal’s …

 

~*~

When Will awakens, the sun is a few hours shy of setting. Hannibal is eating something from his pack, something out of … Tupperware. 

“Where did you get that?” Will asks, the first question tumbling out before he’s entirely awake.

“Important to keep ones food safe for consumption later. Airtight containers: invaluable.” Hannibal holds the container out. “Eat, Will.”

Will takes a strip of what looks like jerky. “What is it?”

“Eat.” Hannibal presses. 

Ah. That means it’s probably human. Was, probably, a human. 

“… young?” Will tentatively asks. He won’t eat a child. He’d rather starve. 

“No. I do not eat the innocent.” Hannibal retorts. He looks oddly satisfied at how Will is so readily accepting this. 

Will gulps, eats. It tastes like pork. He remembers reading about that, in a textbook at the FBI. Human meat and pig meat is nearly indistinguishable, taste-wise. 

“Make a fire. I shall hunt.” 

And just like that, Hannibal is gone. 

Will makes the fire without even thinking of refusing. He checks his clothes, realizes with relief that the knives are all still there, and he doesn’t appear to have been … touched while he was unconscious. 

Hannibal returns before dusk with a rabbit and some plants. He cleans the animal, begins to cook it on a spit. Every so often he stares at Will, firelight reflecting on his eyes. Will shudders when Hannibal licks his lips, and Hannibal refrains for a while focusing on the fire and their meal. 

He’s back to staring during dinner though, and after, while Will is trying to sleep in his ragged sleeping bag.

Will shuts his eyes, wraps his arms around his head, as if that could shield him from Hannibal’s hungry gaze. If Hannibal wants to touch him, kill him, eat him, fuck him … there is little, if anything, that Will could do to try and stop him. 

Will pants, throat dry and hot and tight, skin clammy, panic surging forward. He imagines Hannibal rushing to his side, closing over him like a bird of prey casting its wings over a fallen mouse. 

Mercifully, or perhaps sadistically, Hannibal does not come near, does not touch him. Will rides through the waves of panic alone, as he always has, curls up and feels tears trickling down the side of his face at the pure pathetic hopelessness of the situation. There is actually no one he can turn to for help, no police, no friends, nothing. There is him, Hannibal, and the empty wilderness.

The next morning they break camp and walk side by side, in relative silence, heading east.


	2. Flagged, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some material from the show comes into play. Hannibal and Will continue traveling and come across a town with corpses scattered along the road as warnings. But warnings for whom?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at the Hannibal Kink Meme: http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html?thread=890975#cmt890975 
> 
> I’m not sure what “the Event” was, there was just some big apocalypse, lots of people died, civilization crumbled, etc. Something’s a bit off about the weather. There’s cannibal gangs running around. Y’know, basic post-apocalyptic stuff. No zombies, no virus.

That’s how things go, for several weeks. They walk, speaking infrequently. After the Event, it’s as if words became another commodity to be traded and used sparingly. Will finds his voice rusty and his urge to converse stifled by the weight of the silence of this world with no cars, no radio broadcasts, no internet. Hannibal, too, remains silent for most of the days and nights. At first Will thinks that his vocabulary is limited, as his accent indicates that English is not his native tongue. However, after a week, it’s obvious that this is not the case. Hannibal simply chooses not to fill the air with useless words or small talk. 

Hannibal hunts, cleans the kills, cooks. He brings deer, rabbits, birds, small furry things Will tries not to look at. Even a sheep once, domesticated at one point and now half-wild, but all-stupid, as all sheep are. He never brings back a human, for which Will is thankful. Though he will gladly eat whatever Hannibal cooks for him, he knows he wouldn’t be able to stomach watching Hannibal prepare a human corpse for dinner. 

It is nearing winter, at least as much as the seasons still change. They wake to the grass covered in frost, coating everything. Will’s eyelashes are frozen shut frequently. The first time it happens he panics, clawing at his eyes, rolling around stuck in his sleeping bag, convinced that Hannibal has blinded him in the night to keep him helpless and dependent, more so than he already is.

Hannibal catches him, holds him down, soothes him like a child, an animal. In his fear Will blurts out accusations, struggling, fingers scratching against Hannibal’s skin. 

“That is enough, dear Will,” Hannibal growls. “You see so much: why would I blind you? You are exquisite.” 

Will blinks, eyes finally able to open, breathes a sigh of relief. He retches, stomach heaving and nothing surfacing. Hannibal rubs his shoulders, then stands up to break camp. 

 

~*~

The town is small, isolated, a few farm houses scattered until a clump of stores and houses down Main Street, which is cracked pavement in some places and nothing but dirt in others. 

They find the first body about a mile out of town, the remains of a dark-haired young woman, barely more than a girl, strung up on a signpost, arms splayed out, impaled on deer antlers. A sign is hanging around her neck: Keep Out.

Will shudders, inexorably drawn to the corpse while his body screams at him to turn around and flee. He approaches, notes her relative age, the placement of her wounds. He circles around her, sees a crudely stitched wound.

“He removed her liver … and then put it back.” Will tilts his head. “Why?”

“Perhaps it was cancerous, so he could not eat it.”

“But why not eat the rest of her? Why display her like this but take such care to stitch up her wound?” 

“I do not know. Why don’t we go ask him?”

Will turns, stares at Hannibal.

Hannibal slides his rifle from the strap on his shoulder, loads a round into the chamber. “Shall we?” 

Closer to town they find another girl, this time gutted, major organs missing. Another warning, this time dangling from her feet.

The town is eerily silent. Will’s neck prickles, his mind wanders, slipping into the mind of a man who would kill girls like that, use them as warning signs, yet sew up the wound of a girl with a cancerous liver …

“You can’t have her!”

Will and Hannibal turn towards the source of the noise. A man is standing on the porch of a storefront, gun to the head of a screaming, sobbing woman. Before Will can entirely register what’s going on, the gun fires and the woman falls. The man flees into the store.

Will runs up, kneels down by the woman, but it’s too late for her. Hannibal is already at the door, kicking it open, rifle raised. 

“I won’t let you!” screams the man from somewhere deep in the house. 

The house is filled with corpses. 

No. Not corpses. Kills. No. Carcasses. Deer, women … they’re the same to him. Bones, hair, fur, organs in jars, skins stretched on frames. 

Will gags, presses a hand to the wall to steady himself: it comes away bloody. 

“Control, Will. Find him.” Hannibal hisses. 

Will staggers. “I can’t … I …”

“Put yourself in his mind.”

Will shakes his head. He doesn’t want to go there, never again, no more, he thought he could escape it, after the Event, with so few people, he’d never have to do this again …

A girl screams, from somewhere in the house. Begging, pleading. “Daddy, please! Please!”

Will closes his eyes. 

_Woosh._

The blood is gone. He closes his eyes again. 

_Woosh._

The carcasses are gone. He closes his eyes once more.

 _Woosh._

A man is sitting at the table with his wife and daughter. He stares at his daughter. He wants her. He wants to consume her.

 _Woosh._ He slides a plate across the table: a liver, from a girl who looks just like her. He can’t have her, but he can have others. 

“Backroom. Kitchen. He’ll want to do it there.” Will doesn’t look at Hannibal, can’t take staring into the man’s eyes and seeing another soul, not so soon after this. He’s going to vomit once this is through, he knows it, he can feel the bile already rising, but he steadies himself. He has to get through this, at least. 

Without thinking, Will picks up a gun laying on a table, loads it, readies it. It’s not a rifle, it’s a pistol of some kind. All he knows is that it has bullets, and he needs to be able to shoot this man. 

Maybe then he’ll stop wanting to lick his lips at the sight of these carcasses, admire the work, _understand_ the techniques he used on them. 

They find the man in the kitchen, a knife to his daughter’s throat. She’s crying, struggling, but the blade is already nicking her skin. Blood, the tang so distinct Will swears he can taste it. He knows her father can, has already licked her wound. 

“Get away! She’s mine! MINE!” the man is shaking, wild-eyed.

Will sees his decision seconds before the man does himself. Will fires, and the blade only grazes the girl’s neck. A shock of blood fountains into the air, but it’s not much, she’ll live with a bandage. 

The man drops, writhing in agony. Will drops the gun and dives at him, drawing one of his knives from his jacket and sinking it into the man’s belly. 

“This is how you did it, right?” Will growls, pinning the man down and _slicing_. “Thinking about her? With all of them?”

The man whimpers, nods, eyes glazing over. 

Will backs away, soaked with the man’s blood, feeling woozy and nauseous. He barely makes it to the counter, splutters and coughs, bile and his breakfast splattering a rusty pan fused to the dusty sink. 

When he collects himself he turns around. Hannibal is wrapping a bandage around the girl’s throat. She’s staring at Will and Hannibal with wide eyes, fear of them taking over her terror at nearly being killed by her father. 

“Now, what shall we do with you?” Hannibal asks, running a hand through the girl’s dark hair.


	3. Flagged, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will feels threatened by Abigail's presence in their group and takes some drastic actions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at the Hannibal Kink Meme: http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html?thread=1086559#cmt1086559

Hannibal sends will to scour the town for supplies. Will searches the empty houses, taking his time, finding little of use but enough to fill a backpack. Mostly canned goods, some knives, a coil of rope, a first aid kit wedged behind a couch. He lingers by a shelf of books in a room full of smashed furniture. He takes two, then three, then four, tells himself he could hide them from Hannibal, keep them to himself, read them while Hannibal hunts. Not that he can hide anything from Hannibal. It gives him a momentary thrill to imagine that he could. He shakes his head, takes the books, shoves a faded wool blanket over them in the bag. 

He half expects to find the girl dead when he returns. No body, of course, Hannibal would have taken the meat he wanted and buried her, or hidden her away. 

Instead he rounds a corner and sees Hannibal and the girl waiting by the porch of the corpse house. The girl has a bandage wound around her throat. She’s wearing a thick jacket and is carrying a bag. She looks stunned, lost. There’s a rope around her wrists, like a leash.

Hannibal says nothing, hands the end of the rope to Will while he examines the bag of supplies Will collected. He tests some of the cans of food, shakes them, discards a few as spoiled. He sorts through the first aid kit and keeps it all, even the metal case itself. 

“Books?” he asks, holding up two of the slim volumes. 

“Yes.” Will says, heart in his throat. _Please. Please. Let me. Please._

“If you can carry them.” Hannibal says, setting them with the items to keep. 

Hannibal packs quickly and efficiently, divvying up the cans and blankets to make sure the packs are light enough for each person. Will carries all of the books. 

They begin walking, Hannibal taking the rope from Will and tugging the girl along with them. She stumbles, follows, casting a look back at the house, and then the town, and then the signposts. Then she stares at nothing but the ground in front of her feet. 

That night, Hannibal ties her to a tree and helps Will build the fire. She’s far enough away that, even in this stifling silence of the wilderness after the Event, she won’t be able to overhear them.

Will tilts his head, whispers, “If you’re planning on fattening her up …”

“For the winter? Like a pig to be slaughtered?” a smile ghosts across Hannibal’s face. “Cease your worrying, my dear Will. It will spoil your appetite.”

They eat. Hannibal brings the girl a plate. She stares, shakes her head. He talks to her, softly, so that Will can’t hear. Eventually she eats, watching Hannibal the whole time. He smiles, reaches, brushing some of her hair behind her ear. A blush flickers across her face. 

Will turns away, buries himself in one of the books he collected. 

He is not jealous. It isn’t jealousy that makes him feel ill, thinking about Hannibal touching the girl. 

No. It’s fear. That’s what he realizes, when he curls up in his sleeping bag. Fear that Hannibal has found a new companion, that he’ll cease to be interested in Will for more than food. That he’ll soon see Will as prey again. That someday soon, Will is going to wake up to Hannibal stripping him of his clothes, telling him he has an hour’s start, that after that he will be coming for him, rifle in hand. 

Will dreams again of a stag, but this time he is the stag. He’s running through the woods, and Hannibal is hunting him. 

~*~

When he wakes the girl is still tied up. A small comfort. Will has a very small window of opportunity, and it’s rapidly shrinking. If he doesn’t … do something, before the girl is untied, trusted … 

She’s still asleep. Will blinks, sees himself striding forward, knife in hand, slitting her throat before she can wake. Hannibal would be upset but she would be dead and bleeding and prey and no longer a threat …

Hannibal is asleep too. But he is no less frightening in this state. Will is reminded of drawings in a book he had as a child, a sleeping dragon in a cave, its belly full of the villagers it had consumed. 

Will unzips Hannibal’s sleeping bag, slowly, carefully. He crawls in, zips it up around them as best he can.

Hannibal blinks lazily, then starts, eyes widening in shock. 

“Will –”

“Shhh,” Will glances at the girl, the sleeping girl, the threat. “Don’t wake her.”

Hannibal blinks. “Then …?”

Will slides his hands down Hannibal’s chest, underneath his shirt, the waistband of his pants. “If you want …” he grasps Hannibal’s cock: it’s half hard already. Hannibal does want. 

Hannibal kisses him, all teeth and tongue, lapping at Will’s lips and face, teeth grazing Will’s skin, nipping at the inside of his cheek. He eases down, biting Will’s neck, sucking hard on the skin, leaving marks.

Will presses his knee between Hannibal’s legs, applying pressure, rocking against him. He tries to lose himself in the moment, shut off his empathy, but his senses are becoming overwhelmed. Too much touch, scent, taste, he’s going to overload and …

… Hannibal stops, unzips the sleeping bag and rolls Will out, pushing him away. 

Will pants, eyes watering, panic surging up from his stomach. 

“Oh, my dear Will,” Hannibal murmurs, ghosting his hand over Will’s thigh. “Is it the girl?”

“Yes.” Will whimpers, curling up on himself.

“You fear I would replace you.”

“Yes.”

“That I would begin to view you as nothing but a means of obtaining sustenance.”

“Yes!” Will pressing a hand to his mouth to muffle his sobs.

Hannibal says nothing. Will wonders if Hannibal will kill him now, serve him up as breakfast for the girl. He remembers something of ancient funerary rights, consuming those who came before to gain their knowledge and life force.

“You’re going to have to start trusting me, my dear Will,” Hannibal says, wrapping his arms around Will and pressing their bodies together. Will shudders at the contact, nerves singing, but Hannibal holds him tightly, and Will eventually begins to breathe at a slow, relaxed rate. 

Which is, of course, when Hannibal’s hand slides down and begins stroking Will through his pants. 

“You are being irrational, Will,” Hannibal says as Will squirms and shudders against him. “I observed you for weeks. If I wanted to kill you, you would have been long since dead. Put these fears out of your mind: they have no place cluttering up that extraordinary machine.”

Will gasps, comes, the sudden rush of shame and disgust flooding his system.

Hannibal pulls down his pants, licks him clean. Will stares up at the sky, gray and overcast, and sees the corpses of women in the clouds. 

“Delicious,” Hannibal licks his lips, sitting up. “But you require breakfast as well.”

He cooks some eggs over the embers of the fire, feeds them to Will, then the girl, then himself. 

The girl is tied again, this time around the waist. Her hands are free. She is tied up again at nightfall. Hannibal leaves to hunt, leaves Will and the girl alone.

“Are you going to kill me?” the girl asks. 

Will looks up at her. He remembers the feeling of stabbing her father, the man’s blood bubbling up over him, soaking his hands and shirt. 

“No.”

“Is … is _he_ going to kill me?” she whispers. As if Hannibal could hear them, after having hiked out half an hour ago. 

“No.”

“You know what he’s feeding us, right? It’s human meat. I know what it tastes like. My … my father …” the girl looks ill. “So just, tell me, if you’re going to … you know …” she jerks her head, winces at the pain from the wound her father gave her.

“You’re safe with us.” Will says.

“Safe?” she laughs, a hysterical edge to her voice. “You came to our home, killed my father, tied me up … if you’re not going to eat me, why did you take me with you?” Her face grows paler than its already pale shade. “Oh. You … you two want to … want me …” her hands clench with fear. 

“No.” Will recoils at the vivid scenarios the girl is obviously playing in her mind: Hannibal taking her roughly while she screams, begs for mercy, while Will waits in the shadows for his turn …

“Would you like me to read to you?”

The girl blinks. “What?”

“Read. To you. I found books, yesterday.” Will holds up one of them. “It’s good.”

She just stares at him.

Will reads. His voice still feels rusty, disused. He continues, feeds the fire occasionally, keeps going when Hannibal returns with a pair of rabbits. 

They eat the rabbits, share a can of green beans. Abigail falls asleep listening to Will’s voice, a faint smile on her pale, worried face. 

Hannibal stares at Will for a long time, until finally Will breaks the spell, stops reading, drinks from his canteen and curls up in his sleeping bag. 

“Do you want her gone?” Hannibal asks.

Will stares at him for a long moment. 

“If you want her gone, she will be gone.”

“No.”

The next morning, when they break camp, Abigail is not tied up. She walks alongside them, not dragged behind like livestock.


	4. Flagged, Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will is convinced Hannibal and Abigail are doing more than skinning deer on their "hunting trips." Explicit sex ensues. 
> 
> (This one ends on a nasty cliffhanger.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at the Hannibal Kink Meme: http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html?thread=1353311#cmt1353311

Abigail makes the stretches of silence shorter. She’s not especially chatty, and her voice is soft and hesitant, but even her shy conversations spark discussions during their walks in the day, their rests in the evening. She speaks of her mother, the town where she grew up, even their experiences of the Event. She doesn’t speak about her father, or anything much past the age of thirteen or so. Will doesn’t press, and neither does Hannibal. 

At first she stays with Will when Hannibal leaves to bring back dinner. Then Hannibal starts to bring Abigail with him on his hunts. Not every time, and there seems to be no pattern, at least none discernable to Will. 

Will doesn’t ask her what happens, though his imagination conjures plenty of ideas:

_Hannibal teaching Abigail to shoot his rifle, leaning close over her shoulder._

_Hannibal helping Abigail craft a bow for herself, the bow she takes to carrying constantly._

_Hannibal and Abigail skinning a deer._

_Hannibal and Abigail skinning a man._

_Hannibal and Abigail, covered in blood from a raw kill, stripping each other’s clothes off for a swim in the river. Abigail’s naked body, so tempting to Hannibal for so many reasons. Hannibal pushing Abigail down onto the leaves on the riverbank, tasting, touching …_

Will shakes his head, brings himself back to reality.

Abigail is sitting by the fire, fitting a new string from her bow. Deer sinew, she says, though Will suspects a different source for the material. 

Hannibal has just finished cleaning his gun. He’s putting it away into a lined bag, to keep it safe from the morning dew or frost, depending on what the weather feels like doing. 

Abigail’s hair was braided differently when they returned from their hunt this afternoon. Will doesn’t make much eye contact, but Abigail avoided his quick glances all through dinner. There’s a scratch on Hannibal’s neck that wasn’t there before. 

_Hannibal pushing Abigail down onto the leaves on the riverbank, tasting, touching …_

Will crawls over to Hannibal, buries his face in the crook of Hannibal’s neck. He breathes deep, trying to find Abigail’s scent there, hidden among Hannibal’s own signature. Will doesn’t find it, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong, only that they were careful. 

“Were you going to tell me?” Will asks, sliding his hands up underneath Hannibal’s shirt, searching for marks, the scratches Abigail would have made with her nails as she whined and moaned and struggled uselessly. 

“Tell you …?” Hannibal blinks.

“Don’t lie,” Will growls, reaching into Hannibal’s pants. He knows that Abigail has stopped fixing her bow, has stopped moving altogether, is watching with wide eyes. He doesn’t care. Well, of course he cares, that’s the point of this, he wants her to see, wants her to see him and Hannibal like this, wants Hannibal to see that Will knows and makes Abigail watch …

“William …” Hannibal gasps, arms flat against the ground, fists clenching. “William … I don’ t …” 

“Liar,” Will snarls, stroking Hannibal roughly, faster and faster, staring into those dark eyes that glint red in the firelight. 

Hannibal shudders, eyelids fluttering, as he comes. He whispers something in a language Will doesn’t know, it sounds like German perhaps. 

“Will, I haven’t … we haven’t …” Hannibal waves his hand vaguely. 

Abigail moans softly. 

Will and Hannibal turn to look at her. She’s curling over herself, red-faced, panting, refusing to look at either of them. 

“You haven’t … but …” Will glances between the two of them. How had he miscalculated? What had he read wrong? 

“It looks as though poor Abigail is in need of some assistance. Be a gentleman and help her, would you, my dear Will?” Hannibal eases himself up into a sitting position, rubbing his sweaty face on his sleeve. 

Abigail moans again, louder this time. “Oh god … oh god …”

“Tell dear Will what you want, Abigail. He won’t take you unless you ask nicely.” Hannibal smirks as Will gapes in shock.

“Please … oh god please … I need … I want you … I want you in me …” Abigail chokes, burying her face in her hands. 

Will crosses over to her, kneels down in front of her. He pries her hands away from her face. 

“Is he putting you up to this?” he whispers, so softly that Hannibal can’t possibly hear. “Blink twice for yes.”

Abigail blinks once, and then leans forward and kisses him. 

Will lets her take charge, finds himself flat on the ground with her rutting against him desperately. She fumbles with her shirt and bra. 

He reaches up and puts a hand on her wrist, soft, stopping her gently. 

“Have you done this before?”

She shakes her head. “My d … _he_ didn’t let any guys in our town. Not since I turned thirteen.”

And there’s a story there. A fixation on the father’s part, towards his daughter. Killing dark haired young women and stringing them up as warning signs into the town, keeping men away … but Will decides not to focus on it. This isn’t about her father. He won’t let that man’s ghost haunt Abigail forever. 

Will fingers her gently, stretching her. She’s very wet already, and soon she’s a quivering mess, begging and pleading. Will helps slide her down onto his length slowly. She sets the rhythm, hesitant and jerky and gripping his hair tightly, but it works out eventually. 

Will comes first, having already been aroused by what he did to Hannibal. Abigail slides off of him, gasping for breath. 

Both of them were too caught up in the moment to realize that Hannibal crawled over to join them at some point. He catches Abigail around the waist, kneels down and pries her legs apart, wordlessly licking his way up her skin.

Will watches as Hannibal buries his face between Abigail’s legs. He hesitates to think of it as Hannibal “eating her out” because that would be something else entirely with Hannibal. Still, there is a certain degree of urgency and rather more teeth than usual in cunnilingus. When Abigail orgasms, Hannibal doesn’t stop, he grips her thighs hard and continues to lick at her as she spasms, overly sensitive and wailing. She falls back and Will catches her, holds her, strokes her while Hannibal finishes. When Hannibal straightens up, his face is slick from her. He licks his lips, smiles up at Will (Abigail is still shuddering and shivering between them, lost in her own aftershocks) and grins a feral grin. 

Will stares into those red eyes and wonders what he’s just brought about. 

~*~

They’re avoiding the roads, for now. Will suggested following the paths cut by power lines, which cross over roads and through residential areas at times, but cut through forests for the most part. ATV trails, hunting paths, clear-cut areas starting to become overgrown with saplings, as crews aren’t able to keep maintaining them. The power lines are dead, the poles rotting. 

They hide in the woods, so if anyone is watching from the roads, they won’t be spotted. Abigail has binoculars, which they use to scout ahead for danger. 

That’s how they spot a group, one day, when they’re nearing a road. They wait, hidden in the trees, as a company of thirty or so shuffle on. They have some horses with them, mounted men with rifles astride the skinny beasts. Ragged people with their ankles tied together with lengths of rope drag a cart along. The cart carries food, provisions, and some children. 

“They don’t look friendly,” Hannibal comments softly. 

Will shudders. 

“We could pick off stragglers?” Abigail suggests, hefting her bow.

Hannibal’s hand shoots out, gripping her by the wrist. 

“ _No_.” 

Abigail pouts, but doesn’t protest. 

They wait a full hour before continuing, darting across the road quickly for the safe cover of the trees. 

~*~

Sometimes Abigail goes on hunts with Hannibal. Sometimes she stays with Will and keeps the fire, sets up camp for the night. 

Sometimes she curls up in Will’s arms while he reads to her from the latest book he’s discovered in the ruins of a town. Sometimes she and Hannibal are curled together at night, whispering things Will doesn’t ask about and never hears. And sometimes Abigail drags her sleeping bag to a spot of her own, and sleeps by herself. 

After a nine days of this, Will panics, realizing that Abigail could become pregnant. Abigail isn’t concerned, says that the Event messed with her hormones. Will doesn’t know for sure, feels guilty for a time after that, until Abigail and Hannibal convince him to stop worrying. 

They frighten him, sometimes. More often than he admits. It’s far too easy for Will to imagine them feasting on his corpse. 

He tries to hide it, but sometimes the panic wells up and nothing they do will make it stop. He hides in his sleeping bag, shuts out the world, the Event, the cannibals he’s traveling with, and loses himself in silence and darkness. 

Because in the darkness he isn’t a cannibal too. He isn’t Will Graham. He isn’t anyone. He’s nothing. No pain. No fear. Nothing. 

After one such night, when Will slept alone, he wakes to the sound of voices. Several unfamiliar voices. 

Will slide his hand into his jacket, slowly, sleepily, as if he’s still asleep or just barely waking up … and grasps the handle of his knife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the last update I made before getting my Wisdom Teeth out. I was drugged up for a while, kept meaning to get back to the story, but ... well, I started working again, other fandoms dragged me away, and I just wasn't sure how to continue. Part 5 coming soon, I have a good chunk of it written, I just need to finish it and edit it. I have to decide whether to keep going after Part 5 or not, so part of the writing is deciding whether to give it a proper ending or leave it open for the future. I'm not one for writing a series, the most I tend to do is a trilogy, and about 80-90% of what I write are one-shots. Keeping the momentum going for this long surprised me.


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